


take your time (i wont be far behind)

by wanderingsheep



Category: The Boys (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon-Typical Behavior, Multi, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:41:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27143974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderingsheep/pseuds/wanderingsheep
Summary: When fate brings you to someone, you mark each other with colors that bind you together. The more noticeable the color, the closer you are.A story of how the Boys find each other. Whether enthusiastically or with a great deal of reluctance.
Relationships: Becca Butcher/Billy Butcher, Billy Butcher/Hughie Campbell, Cherie/The Frenchman/Jay (The Boys), Hughie Campbell/Robin Ward, Hughie Campbell/Starlight | Annie January, Monique/Mother's Milk (The Boys), The Female | Kimiko Miyashiro/The Frenchman, The Frenchman/Mother's Milk (The Boys)
Comments: 19
Kudos: 147





	take your time (i wont be far behind)

Frenchie’s first mark comes when he’s eighteen. He’s drunk off his ass, stumbling into a shitty New York hostel when he runs headlong into another tenant. It’s a hot summer and the romantic part of Frenchie is looking for marks, so it’s no surprise that both men are barely covered. Frenchie wakes up in the arms of a man with a dark blue mark on his shoulder and Frenchie carries the corresponding green, the color of nuclear radiation.

_That should’ve been a sign, he would later think, but in the moment all Frenchie could do was fall in love with a man called Jay._

After a few days of wandering the city, hand in hand, Jay introduces Frenchie to a whole new world. Frenchie discloses his talent for fire, for building bombs, and for drugs. Jay smiles, “I knew we were marked for a reason,” before dragging him underground.

The moment Cherie took his face in her hand, leaving a dark, cloudy grey across his jaw, Frenchie knew. He left his shaky yet confident blue across the top of her ear, a shade darker than what he left on Jay. A reverent brush of his fingertips at the realization that he was no longer alone.

That was the day Frenchie threw out his tourist visa and resolved to stay, no matter the price. It was also the first day he was handed a gun and told who to shoot. There’s always a price, his father intoned in the back of his mind. Nothing in life is free. Not things, not people, and certainly not love.

Not being alone has a price, Frenchie tells himself as he ran to Jay, ignoring his duty to Mallory. The toxic green stands out too strongly on his arm, burning across his skin as her grandchildren go up in flames.

Mother’s Milk has always left a lot more marks than he received, that was something that defined him down to his core. His wife, for example, he loved her as much as he could breathe. And when his dark green, the color of a forest after the rain, stood out on her hand and her brown, the color of the earth, barely appeared on his skin, MM stayed.

When Mallory, who bears no visible marks and leaves none in return, introduces him to Butcher, MM holds his breath as they shake hands. This is a man who radiated rage and MM does not want to care. But, predictably, because when could he resist a broken man, MM leaves a noticeable green streak up the Brit’s arm. Not his darkest to be sure, but still there. Meanwhile, across his palm, MM finds a light shade of rust red. The color of scrubbed off blood.

When Frenchie first appears on the team, higher than a kite and a heartbeat away from overdosing, MM knows he's fucked. MM has loved women all his life, but there is something about this man that calls to him. This man needs care and MM has more than enough to share. Mallory nods him over, and MM hikes his medical kit over his shoulder, already resigned to what he knows will happen. He checks the prone man's pulse, barely stopping to shake his head at the darkest green he has ever left that blooms on the man’s pulse point. MM saves his life and welcomes Frenchie to the team from a careful distance.

_MM wasn’t sure how much more one-sided caring he could take. He discovered the limit in the burned-out husk of a house._

It isn’t until MM is in the warehouse, holding Mallory up as she struggles to make sense of her new world, that he finally gets his answer. Frenchie appears, eyes wild, and MM finds himself filled with rage. He screams. For the first time in his life, MM wants to scare the ever-loving shit out of someone he cares about.

“Get out, Frenchie. And don’t come back.”

Frenchie looks desperate, but MM, for the first time, can’t find it in himself to care. He has seen the house, smelled the bodies, and nothing is worth that. Frenchie reaches out and grabs his wrist in a last, desperate move. MM shakes him off, throwing Frenchie out of the warehouse, and doesn’t look until hours later, while keeping guard over Mallory's hotel room. The deep, dark, blue of an endless ocean.

Before, Kimiko has no marks. Her only love is for her brother, and blood doesn’t leave marks on blood. Her days are spent creating a language only he understands, and that’s as good as any mark to her.

After, Kimiko is told that she cannot leave marks. She is now a soulless monster meant to kill. Her brother is gone and she will do what she is told, as she has her whole life.

_But for the first time, Kimiko doesn’t give a shit._

She kills the doctors who injected poison in her veins, dies, comes back, kills the guards who shot her full of bullets, dies again, comes back, and the cycle continues until she left alone in a cage with a television.

Her life dulls to that room for weeks until she hears shooting and shouting. Then she sees a man, his accent strange, but something in her relaxes at the sound of it. He’s begging them to open the door.

_She’d picked up a lot of English from the television. She had always been smarter than she seemed._

And they finally oblige. The other men survey the room while the familiar, yet unknown, man, enters the room.

“Hello, I am Frenchie,” he sits down next to her, “oh, I like this show.”

He scoots closer and she flinches. His hands come up, careful, a surrender, a promise.

“Do you want to get out of here?” He reaches his hand out, and she finds her fingers tangled with his. They come away dark, dark blue. The endless, shimmering of the ocean she had only seen on the television.

In return, she sees a bright, glittering, white on his hands. The rainbow color of a diamond, forged from heat and pressure, only to come out stronger.

_Later, in the quiet, Kimiko would spend a lot of time thinking about her color._

But right now, there is a guard shooting and she covers her blue with the red of those that would hold her down.

Butcher used to love his soul marks. Becca’s teal stood out bright on his palm, a clear reminder that he was loved by his wife.

He had always been embarrassed by his color, the dark red that stained her shoulder from where he had tapped her to get her attention at the bar. Her hair shone brightly in that summer sun and her laugh had been damn near musical. Butcher should have known how bad it would hurt when she left (died, disappeared, whatever), but back then he had no idea. All he knew is that he had been blessed with bright teal on his hand to cover up all the red that had stained him before.

Butcher fucking hates his soul marks now. They show weakness and carry a reminder of everything in his life he is trying to leave behind. He wears socks more often than not, covering the blue that was darker than it should be.

_He and Frenchie had been drunk, again, tripping and falling their way to their beds. On a lark, Butcher had stuck his foot out to trip Frenchie._

_Then he had woken up to Frenchie’s foot in his face, the Algerian delighted at the light red across his ankle._

Butcher almost always wears gloves, can’t fucking leave any marks if you don’t touch anyone. The dark green and the bright teal cover both his hands and the first time he sees blood splattered on the teal, he stops to throw up. Marks don’t disappear when someone leaves (dies, disappears, gives birth to a supe kid, whatever) and he almost wishes they would. They could, however, be burned off and Butcher came close.

_He held the little lighter over the teal, relishing in the slight tickle before he abruptly jerked out of his entranced, drunk, state and threw it away._

Maybe he's a coward, maybe he can't move on, maybe it's unhealthy and he needs therapy. But fuck it, revenge is so much more fun.

Hughie lived most of his life quietly. He hadn’t left his mark on anyone and none had left theirs in return. Until Robin. Robin had burst into his life as a riot of color. She had colors that streaked up her arms and neck and face. Hughie had stared, and stared, and stared, until she finally asked him out with a laugh that matched her colors. The date had gone well and before he knew it, she had shimmied out her her shirt and pants in the bathroom of the restaurant. Hughie’s hands fluttered nervously around her, and she had just laughed again, “put your hands wherever there’s a free space, babe”. So Hughie had placed a hand on her hip, and discovered his color. It was bright yellow, soft as feathers, streaked with grey. Robin, in return, had pulled his shirt up, trailing her fingers up his spine. When he went home that night, lipstick stains and hickeys up his neck, he twisted to see a bright lilac streak up his spine.

Later, while riding the high of being asked to move in, Hughie had placed his hand on the streak of yellow peeking out from under her shirt and felt at peace. It was shattered less than a minute later when the yellow disappears and drowns in a sea of red.

After Robin, Hughie’s whole life becomes filled with colors he really doesn’t want. Frenchie grabs his bicep to get his attention and Hughie’s fingers brush his to accept the dirty as fuck chef’s coat that is somehow cleaner than he is, covered in the blood of an invisible supe. Frenchie smiles, tapping his now yellow fingers to his lips and placing them over the blue band that wraps around Hughie’s arm. Hughie just stares, dread filling his heart as he is now bound to a man who shoved a bomb up a supe's ass.

Mother’s Milk isn't so bad. He had a calming effect on the group, even as he threatened Butcher and wielded a massive gun. He gives Hughie a once over, seeing the blue on his arm, and nods to himself. He claps Hughie on the back of his shoulder, nearly knocking him over, and the dark, healing green of the forest finds its home right above Frenchie’s turbulent blue. In return, a week later, Hughie leaves a light yellow handprint on MM’s knee, a testament to how clumsy he is when trying to get up off the couch while drunk.

Butcher doesn’t initiate contact and he usually wears gloves or is careful to stay away from the group. Hughie doesn’t mind, he’s been covered in enough red for a lifetime, he doesn’t need more.

_Later, Hughie will change his mind, but he isn’t ready yet._

When Annie gets the call from Vought, she screams. Her mother is ecstatic and Annie is relishing the fact that she is finally going somewhere her mother cannot follow. This is what freedom feels like.

Then she reads the contract.

Annie might have been homeschooled and spent her life on the road at pageants, praising Christ, but she wasn’t stupid. Annie knew what “All members of the Seven agree to remain unbonded and will submit to Vought for bond-removal upon any contact with a civilian or otherwise unauthorized person” meant.

She hadn’t met anybody, had nothing to report, didn’t even know what her color would be, yet she felt the loss more keenly than anything else Vought could think to take away from her. “It’s to protect you, baby. You know how many people out there would try to take your light away if they could,” her mother croons in her ear, a line that Annie is beginning to doubt more and more every day.

She meets the Seven and for the first time, begins to understand that she will never be free. The Deep assaults her and she sees no marks and he’s oh so careful to keep his hands away from her. The practice of it is more disconcerting than anything. Black Noir is mystery and Translucent’s skin isn’t enough of one and Annie isn’t sure she wants to know any more than she already does.

If Queen Maeve has any marks, then Annie sure as shit hasn’t seen them.

_And she won’t, until much later, when Maeve saves her and shows her the patch of skin Homelander had burned off when she joined the team._

_Then Maeve leaves the brightest trace of silver, like moonlight, on her skin, and Annie understands what Maeve gave up for power._

Then she meets Hughie on a bench. He lights up her world and doesn’t ask if he can take what she can’t give. They talk and she keeps her careful distance, but then there’s a moment where she forgets she’s Starlight, forgets she’s Vought’s and leans in. His breath fans out over face and before she can say anything, he reaches a finger up to move her hair. He leaves the brightest brush of yellow along her temple.

_Later, Annie will never be more grateful than she is to whoever came up with that fucking wig she has to wear all of the time._

She runs, after that, tries to avoid Hughie. But it’s almost like the colors mark fate or something because she sees him everywhere. He is determined to rush headlong into danger and before she can remember her boundaries, she grabs his hand. Her color is golden, the shine so bright it’s almost glowing.

The truth comes out but Hughie doesn’t run. Instead, he laughs. He holds out his hand in her signature pose, the one that covers the billboards, and says, “Look, we match!”

Finally, _finally_ , fate wins the battle against Billy Butcher. He had felt the pull towards Hughie since he locked eyes with the younger man, holding a fucking nanny cam of all things. Butcher knew what that pull meant; once it had meant a beautiful woman at a bar and a tap on her shoulder. Now, it’s the pull to protect, to keep coming back even when he shouldn’t. And he does a good job for a long time, and he’s fucking proud of that.

_Hughie is a touchy drunk, especially once you’ve left your color on him and he knows it’s okay. Frenchie welcomes it, craving touch as much as Hughie himself. MM tolerates it, already used to Frenchie. It takes all of Butcher’s surely posturing and willpower to keep himself out of the way._

But then, the fucking van blows up. Of course it blows up, why wouldn’t it. Why wouldn’t there be a fucking crazy escaped supe that blows vans up?

For a moment, Butcher considers thanking the Lord, because, as he sees Hughie get out, laughing, everything seems fine. Maybe luck was on his side for once. Butcher promptly changes his tune when Hughie collapses.

Starlight catches Hughie, but it's Butcher that makes eye contact first. Before he can think, the overwhelming need to comfort takes over, and Butcher slides his hand around the back of Hughie’s neck, holding him up as Hughie gasps for air.

Cursing, with Starlight panicking, useless, and out of electricity, Butcher pulls his shirt over his head and ties it around the nearly unconscious man’s torso as tightly as he possibly can. Butcher is near panic himself and he keeps his focus decidedly away from Hughie’s neck and stares directly at Starlight as he scoops Hughie up.

“Come on Sparkles, we have to find electricity so you can stop the bleeding.” Butcher rises, Hughie cradled so carefully in his arms and resolutely marches forward.

They find power, Starlight burns the wound over, and Butcher tries really hard not to think about Hughie’s head buried into his shoulder and his arm holding Hughie close.

The trio makes it to the hospital. A shirtless Butcher holding a half-dead Hughie causes some commotion, but thankfully the ER has seen stranger.

Hughie is settled, sleeping, and Butcher finally lets himself look. There’s a handprint that wraps around Hughie’s neck, the color of blood so dark it’s nearly black. It’s one part protective, one part possessive, and one part warning. Hughie is loved by someone who carries the color of death.

They stand in silence, before Starlight murmurs, more to herself than anyone else, “Yours is a shade darker."

“Pardon?”

“His mark on you,” she gestures to Butcher’s (now covered) chest, “it’s a shade darker than the one he left on me.”

Butcher has a damn good poker face, but even he couldn’t stop the half-strangled sound that came out of his mouth. He walks, quickly, to the adjoining bathroom and looks at his chest. The shirt is caked in Hughie’s blood. Hughie almost died in his arms and goddamn his mark is so dark on the man’s neck. Butcher feels his breathing quicken, and in a jagged movement, the shirt comes over his head and drops to the floor.

_Butcher hadn't even noticed that Hughie had touched him. Hughie of course had desperately needed to know and picked the first surface in his line of sight._

_If he was going to die, Hughie was going to leave his fucking mark on Butcher._

But there it is, a perfect handprint over his heart, bright yellow streaked with dark grey, like a canary in a coal mine.

**Author's Note:**

> I sort of headcanoned that anyone with Compound V, it affects their colors and makes them metallic or shiny. Whereas normal people will just have normal colors. And that people like Homelander can't give or receive colors because they are incapable of caring. 
> 
> Come find me at okaykiri.tumblr.com if you want to chat!


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